Yassen's Princess
by Phoenix Jasmine Lee
Summary: Yassen is bitter and alone when John dies, and then he meets her. And then, suddenly, she's gone. But she left something behind, something that means the world to Yassen. Watch him as he contemplates his life and what the people around him mean to him.
1. Chapter 1

**Let me explain this before I confuse you.**

**Yassen is an interesting character. So confusing, so dark, but somehow… a complete mystery. I love it, and playing around with him is fun. And I read the ES line about Yassen learning Japanese and this came to me.**

**So, writing this is like trying to erase some of the mystery. He's so well-controlled, I thought I'd show him in a time where he at least had something in his life. It's really quite sad, actually.**

**Oh, and let me explain about my portrayal of John. When Yassen said he loved him, I took it to mean in a romantic sense, of sorts. (Can you tell I've been reading ES?) But I'd like to believe that John, happily married, would be too devoted to Helen to cheat on her. He might have loved Yassen, too, but like a brother, or a close friend. Call me stupid and naive, but I'd like to believe it.**

**So, here it is; me epically playing with and thus messing up Anthony's characters.**

**And, on that subject, Anthony Horowitz owns them. And I, sadly, do not.**

Damian Cray's mansion is silent; it is just after two thirty in the morning, and almost everyone in residence is asleep.

One room, on the first floor, still has the soft glow of a desk light pulsing under the crack of the closed door. Inside the room sits a man, perhaps in his mid-thirties, at the old wooden desk. He looks young and fit, with fair hair and cold blue eyes.

Yassen Gregorovich pulls a book out of a bag. The book, crisp and brand new, is a workbook for someone studying Japanese. It's a language Yassen has long been determined to learn but never did. But he is, after all, the best assassin in the modern world. He has absolute control over himself and his emotions. It's been long enough. It shouldn't hurt anymore.

Then he catches sight of the cover. It's a photo of several Japanese children. There's a young girl in the center, smiling, looking out at him. Her eyes draw him in.

_Her eyes…_

He slams the book closed, face down, ridding himself of the pictures and the pain.

How long does the pain last?

It was two and a half years after the tragedy on Albert's Bridge. Yassen had mourned, in private, of course, and, by now, he had firmly controlled his emotions.

He still missed John, of course. He still loved him, in his way. John had been his first love, though they'd never been romantically involved, because John was far too loyal to his marriage to do any such thing. Though Yassen didn't understand John's love for a woman who knew nothing of their lifestyle, he respected John all the more for his loyalty.

After John had been killed, Yassen had tried to wipe away the emotions in the bodies of others. There were many nights with many faceless men and women, none of them remembered the next day.

Until her.

She too was an assassin, also working for SCORPIA. She was fairly young, and relatively new, but no one doubted her immense skill. It was said that, at seventeen, she killed a grown man with just her right hand. Yassen didn't doubt it.

She took a liking to Yassen and openly pursued him. At that time in his life, he would not turn her away.

She was a slight, small woman, born and raised in Japan. Her name was Ana, and she was the only partner he had during that time that he cared anything for.

Years later, he could still remember her name, her face, her touch. He didn't love her. He couldn't bring himself to love her. But her certainly cared about her.

Until she disappeared. She had vanished one day, without a trace. No one, not even SCORPIA, knew where she had gone.

Yassen controlled his emotions, suppressing his sadness at the loss. Soon, he was back to his life of killing. It suited him.

It was Julia Rothman who had given him the call.

Yassen had been on assignment. He had barely left the scene of the murder when his phone rang. He was briefly irritated, but suppressed it. He was sure Mrs. Rothman would have a good excuse.

"Hello?" he said quietly.

"Yassen?" she said. "I'm sorry. So, so sorry."

"What is it, Julia?" he asked, still calm.

"It's Ana," she said. "They found her body."

Yassen momentarily gripped the phone tighter. _She's gone, just like John_.

He flew back to Venice that afternoon, where he was given the full story.

Ana had been found in a small shack in the English countryside. Her throat had been slit, her body beaten before she had been killed. There was no way of telling who had done it.

Yassen was inclined to believe that it was MI6. They had taken John from him; why not Ana, as well?

But the truly shocking news was that, in the same hut, a baby had been found. She was a little girl, with Japanese eyes. On his flight to Venice, the lab had gotten back with the DNA results. This was Ana's daughter… and Yassen's. A low-level SCORPIA grunt placed the girl in Yassen's stunned arms.

Mrs. Rothman offered to have the baby put up for adoption, but Yassen turned her down. While, at the back of his mind, he knew that that was the logical option, he refused it. He had nobody left in this world besides his daughter, and she had nobody but him. Somehow, he would figure it out.

He watched the little girl fall asleep in his arms.

He looked up at Julia Rothman. "Does she have a name?"

The woman shook her head. "Not that we know."

He looked down at her once more.

"Anya," he said quietly.

Yassen pulled the knife from the man's throat and began to clean it, ignoring the stunned, dead face of the drug lord at his feet.

"Dada?" a voice at the door said, quietly and hesitantly. Yassen remained silent, keeping his curses internal. The baby was not supposed to be here; the little boy was supposed to be with his Mother that night.

Yassen melted into the shadows, as John had taught him to do years ago.

"Dada?" the boy said one more time, before tottering away from the door, thankfully not entering.

When all was quiet again, Yassen snuck out the window.

He arrived at his home in Russia just hours later. As he opened the door, elderly Matilda teetered over to him.

Matilda was an elderly woman, a hundred percent Russian. She had been married and raised four children, all of them long gone into the world, with her husband dead. She was dumpy and good natured, and thought the greatest joy in life was raising children.

When Yassen had first brought his baby home, there had been the issue of what was to happen when he had to work. It had been a nightmare because, obviously, he couldn't just hire a babysitter like any other parent. But, eventually, Matilda had passed SCORPIA's thorough security screening and was made housekeeper.

Matilda watched him as he walked in, tired and exhausted. "Oh, good, Mr. Gregorovich. You're home. She's in her room."

Yassen nodded once and headed to the room in the back of the house.

Sitting up in bed was seven year old Anya, waiting expectantly.

"Daddy," she said, smiling in greeting.

_Daddy. Dada._ He had killed a Father earlier that evening. And now, here he was, talking to his little girl.

Her eyes were wide and happy as he sat on the corner of her bed. "Daddy, I missed you."

He ruffled her short curls. "I missed you too, Princess."

She beamed.

Yassen took a quick look around her room. Her possessions were nice, expensive things, and each one of them was paid for with the death of somebody else.

His career had never made him feel ashamed before. If anything, it had made him proud, to have that kind of power, to be able to play God. But how could he ever get his little girl to understand that he killed people for a living?

He would never tell her. He would keep her as far away from that world as possible; he resolved so long ago, before her first birthday.

He grinned a wry smile that Anya took for a look of happiness. He had not kept her away from his world. Her wall had pictures taken in Russia, England, Italy, and France. At seven, she spoke all four languages. She was learning two different martial arts and her instructors were shocked by her rapid progress. He had taught her to lie in the most convincing ways. His daughter, whether she knew it or not, was being dragged slowly into his world by his insane need to protect her from it. By her knowing these things he was protecting her from the members of his world. By her knowing these things he was bringing her into the world of assassins and spies.

He turned back to her, sighing internally. Whatever it took, he would both protect her and prepare her for his world, but he would keep her out of business.

He kissed her forehead. "Go to sleep, Anya," he said quietly.

She was already lying down, her head resting on the soft purple pillowcase. "Stay with me, Daddy?" she asked, stifling a yawn.

"Of course," he said. Always.

He hadn't been working when it had happened.

Yassen had taken Anya to England for a much-needed vacation. She had just turned ten years old. Regrettably, he'd been on a "business trip" during her birthday. A two-week vacation, just the two of them, was his way of making it up to her. So far, they had had a great time.

Until the day he had taken her into London.

It had started off great. They'd woken up at a lavish hotel, eaten a hot breakfast, and had begun to see the sights. Yassen had put up with her excitement with pleasure; seeing her happy made him happy. Her incessant chatter, which would annoy him to murder from any other person, elated him.

Until the man, a low-level in British intelligence, had spotted them.

Yassen should have been smarter than to go into London. He was considered the number one assassin in the world, so it was not surprising that every intelligence agency in the world had his photo.

When the man had seen him, he panicked, assuming Yassen was here to kill. He had pulled out his gun. Yassen was a threat that had to be eliminated.

Anya, none the wiser, had walked right into the bullet's path. She was dead before she fell onto the dirty sidewalk.

Anya had been cremated, her ashes spread into the ocean. Yassen had mourned, privately.

And then he returned to killing. His first kill was the intelligence worker who had shot his daughter, his Princess, his baby girl, his whole world.

There were many other kills, of course. Assignment and assignment came in, and Yassen completed each one successfully.

Because that is was he does.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi guys!**

**Well, I know I said "one shot"… but, what can I say? I'm a compulsive liar who felt "two-shot" was way more cool.**

**I know it's short, but I felt it's necessary for me to add this to feel that this is complete.**

**Another explanation- I always felt that Yassen, in a very "Yassen" like way, was very protective of Alex. In my world, that's because he reminds Yassen of a combination of John and Anya. Which kind of just spoiled what I'm about to write, didn't it? Oh, well.**

**So, basically, I continue to play with the characters- and they belong to Anthony Horowitz, and not to me. Sadly.**

As Yassen lies dying on the floor of Air Force One, he thinks back. He is dying, and he knows it. He is dying to protect John's boy, John's precious only child.

Because Yassen would have wanted John to protect Anya, had their positions been reversed.

He remembers that day, the first time he had met the boy. Alex, his name is. He looks just like his Father. That was the first thing Yassen had thought.

The boy had promised to kill him, because Yassen had killed his uncle. John's brother. Yassen felt just the slightest twinge of guilt about that, but quickly dismissed it. Though, at the time, he had just been following orders, he was actually doing the boy a favor. Ian- that was the uncle's name- Ian hadn't protected John, his own brother, from his employers MI6. Ian had failed to protect Alex from those killers.

How many people has MI6 taken from Yassen? John, Ana, and his little Anya. Now he is watching as they slowly killed Alex, too. He has seen the change in Alex, from his first mission with the Stormbreakers to now, dealing with Cray. Before, he had been a child. A clever child, of course, but a child nonetheless. Now, though, he has seen too much, done too much. Now, before Yassen's very eyes, he is being destroyed.

No. Not before Yassen's eyes, because Yassen will not be alive much longer. He will not be able to watch Alex destroy himself any farther.

In his few moments left, he wonders idly what Anya would have been like at this age. She and Alex were much alike; both naturally adept to this secret world. Alex had been raised by his MI6 uncle and is now working for the evil agency. Would his little Anya be working for SCORPIA? He shudders at the thought, though the shudder may be due more to the cold, the deathly cold, seeping into his skin. He has no more than minutes left.

And then, he hears himself speaking to Alex, telling the boy to find SCORPIA. No! What's he doing? He wants the boy out of this world, not even deeper into it.

But he knows that Alex cannot leave. He knows that there is a point that people reach where they can't go back, and Alex long since crossed it. But he can do his best by John's child, making sure the boy has a chance at knowing the truth.

_I'm sorry John,_ he thinks, his eyes beginning to close. _I just don't know what else to do_.

He realizes that Alex has fallen unconscious beside him, giving into what must be blinding pain. Yassen stares at him once more, forcing his eyes to remain open one second longer, memorizing the boy who looks so much like his Father.

As his eyes close, and he drifts off into the short unconsciousness that proceeds death, he imagines four faces in his mind; John, Ana, Anya, and Alex. Wherever he is going, he sincerely hopes it's a while before he sees Alex there. And he hopes that the rest are waiting for him.

_I'm coming_, he thinks tiredly before drifting into the peaceful realm of unconsciousness.

He's tires, so tired. He's tired of killing, of hiding, of lying. He's ready for peace.


End file.
